


another turning point (a fork stuck in the road)

by pirateygoodness



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 08:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8971474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirateygoodness/pseuds/pirateygoodness
Summary: Jemma finds her at a waffle house outside of Fort Collins. (AU, set in the space between Seasons 3 and 4)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @theydecidedtocallmefake on Tumblr for the Skimmons Secret Santa exchange. Hope you enjoy it!

Jemma finds her at a waffle house outside of Fort Collins. She's eating lunch, wolfing down bites of chicken and waffles with one hand and reading her phone with the other. It's not the most cultured way to eat a meal, but it's efficient, and it keeps her from drawing undue attention. Making small talk gets a person noticed. Daisy doesn't want to be noticed. She wants to be ignored, written off as one more millennial who won't look up from their cell phone. 

(It is, of course, not Daisy's actual phone. It's a burner, with a disposable SIM card, and she's got layer after layer of proxy web access to keep her movements from being traced.)

Jemma finds her anyway. 

She sits down across from Daisy, plants her hands on the table. "Fancy meeting you here," she says, voice full of extremely English disapproval. 

Daisy only has one clean pair of pants, and she's so shocked at the sight of Jemma - here, in front of her - that she barely notices herself dripping syrup all over the lap of them. 

"You're dripping," Jemma says. She arches an eyebrow at Daisy's fork. 

Daisy catches herself, eats the offending bite of waffle and sets her fork down. Her lap is covered in a gentle, sticky drizzle. It's not her best look. "So, Coulson sent you?" she says. She thinks about dabbing at the syrup on her jeans with a napkin, but if a bunch of SHIELD agents are going to descend to black-bag her soon, she'd rather at least get them sticky. 

Jemma shakes her head. "Coulson doesn't know I'm here."

"The new director, then. The one I keep hearing about in the papers. Mace?"

Jemma actually rolls her eyes. "He thinks I'm doing research in Bulgaria." 

"You're here to bring me in yourself, then." 

Jemma slides Daisy's plate across the table toward herself, and takes a bite of her waffles. "I couldn't just be concerned about you?"

Daisy doesn't know what to say to that. It hasn't been that long - a couple of months, maybe - but she's already slipped back into the headspace of being on her own. She's in the habit of not having ties, not having people who care about her, and it honestly hasn't occurred to her that people aside from Coulson and Mack would be looking. It sets an ache going in her chest, of a kind she hasn't felt in a while. She chooses silence. 

Jemma's watching her, probably noting microexpressions, analyzing her responses. All Daisy can manage is a shrug. 

"I like the new look," Jemma tries after a while. Daisy can't quite parse her tone of voice, isn't sure if that's supposed to be a compliment or not, but she notices the way Jemma's looking at her - like she really does want to make conversation. 

"Thanks," Daisy says. Her voice comes out soft, a little shy. "Really?"

Jemma smiles, a wide grin that feels bigger and more genuine than Daisy deserves. "Really." 

Daisy attempts a smile in return. "So, if SHIELD isn't about to burst in and take me down, do you think I could finish my waffles?"

Jemma laughs, and slides the plate back across the table. 

 

+

 

Daisy's place is a motel room, cheap as they come. She put a deposit down on a van days ago, but it needed some work finished before she could live in it full time, won't be ready until the morning at least. The motel is notable for being sketchy, poorly air-conditioned, and the only place in town that was willing to accept cash payments without ID or a credit card. It doesn't seem right to just leave Jemma, after the diner, so she invites her back over. 

She doesn't miss the way Jemma eyes the front entrance, the half-dozing clerk at the front desk, the overall shabbiness of the space. Jemma's been doing field training, and Daisy can see her looking for exits, memorizing routes as they walk. It suits her, but it also sends a little pang of something through Daisy's heart. 

(She can't help thinking that she should have been there. That she should have been the one to help Jemma train for field work.) 

"You can have a seat wherever," Daisy says, as she locks the door behind them. The motel room has a bed - unmade, strewn with yesterday's clothes - and a little desk with a small chair, beyond that an armchair in the corner. The only place that doesn't have Daisy's stuff all over it is the armchair, and Jemma perches herself at the very edge of it, body language delicate and polite. "I'll just be - " Daisy says, gestures to the bathroom. 

Jemma nods, and Daisy tries not to think too hard about the look she's giving Daisy as she takes in the place. 

Once she's in the bathrooom, she takes off her jeans, spot-cleaning the syrup drips as best she can. She's moving on to Nevada and then LA as soon as she can, and doesn't want to have to do laundry until then, if she can manage it. 

The syrup comes out just fine, but she's left with deep wet spots all across the front of her pants, doesn't want to put them back on just yet. She wanders back out into the main room, jeans still in hand. She drapes her pants over the back of the little desk chair, angling it so that it's in the sunniest corner of the room. It takes her a few minutes to remember that Jemma's waiting for her, another few seconds to realize that Jemma's staring and that it's probably because she's been walking around in her underwear. "Sorry," she says, reaching for the first item she can find. It's a pair of black skinny-jeans, torn at the knees and thighs, and they need a wash but they look clean enough for now. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Jemma says. She makes a point of looking away while Daisy dresses, as if that's the most embarrassing part of all this. "It's fine."

"Decent," Daisy says, once she is. "Guess I'm a little used to being on my own." 

Jemma nods. She's red up to her ears, and Daisy can't tell if she's embarrassed at seeing her or embarrassed _for_ her, doesn't like that feeling. Daisy turns away, fussing with the clothing strewn around her bed and starting to fold it. After a long silence, Jemma says, "You've lost weight. Are you eating?"

Daisy fumbles with the shirt she's folding, tries to recover by setting it down and running a hand through her hair. She doesn't know how to react to this, to the way Jemma keeps insisting on being concerned for her, the way she's watching Daisy like she actually cares about the answer. She rubs the back of her neck, trying to focus on the way the short hairs at her nape feel against her palm. "Enough, yeah." 

"Good," Jemma says, in a tone that doesn't quite sound like she believes it. "Good." 

Daisy goes back to folding laundry, arranging it into a pile that's going to go straight into her suitcase, ready for her next stop. But now it's her turn to watch Jemma. She takes in the way that she's staring at her hands, the out-of-place-ness of seeing her with her little suit jacket and perfect posture surrounded by the trappings of Daisy's life, right now. She doesn't mention any of that. What she says is: "Your hair's long." 

Jemma smiles, plucks at the ends of her hair self-consciously. "I suppose," she says. "I've been letting it grow." 

"It looks good. You look good," Daisy says. 

Jemma offers her a soft look in return, and Daisy feels an answering softness in her heart. 

 

+

 

Jemma stays with her until well after dark. Daisy's folded all of her laundry and tidied the motel room, and they've already agreed on what to order for dinner and eaten it. The pizza's sitting in its box on the little motel desk, only half-eaten between the two of them. It's long since cold, and Daisy doesn't really have anything for Jemma to do, but Jemma's still there. 

They sort of ran out of small talk an hour ago. (Not _things to say_ \- Daisy has so much of that, building into an ache inside her chest - but easy things, safe topics.) The silence between them is somewhere in between awkward and companionable, and it's making Daisy want to fidget. She picks up the remote control, flicks on the TV. Jemma watches her cycle through channels with tired eyes, reacts appropriately to the fairly depressing mix of twenty four hour news and bad sitcoms. 

Jemma yawns, suddenly, with a little sound in the back of her throat that's almost surprise. She looks exhausted - she should look exhausted, it's well past midnight - but she's still awake, watching Daisy with something almost like mistrust. Like she's not sure if Daisy will still be there after she falls asleep. 

Daisy flicks off the TV. "Look, I'm not going anywhere," she says. "Get some rest." 

Jemma blinks tiredly. "I wasn't - it's perfectly alright, I can-"

"Jemma," Daisy says. Her name sounds awkward around her tongue, foreign after all this time. "You're tired. Go to sleep, I'll be fine." 

"Alright," she murmurs, voice already drowsy. She draws her knees up, as if she's planning to sleep in the armchair, and that's not what Daisy meant at all. 

"You don't have to - I mean, the bed's pretty big. If you wanted." 

"You don't mind?"

"Go ahead," Daisy says. She's sitting on the bed, but she slides to the edge to make room for Jemma, pats the free space beside her. 

Jemma gives her a grateful, sleepy smile, and moves over to join her. Now that Daisy's mentioned sleep, she can see Jemma's eyes growing heavy, blinking drowsily. She settles herself on the bed and Daisy can't help but notice that she can feel the mattress dip, that the covers move underneath her as Jemma arranges them around her shoulders. She doesn't know what to do with that information - with the fact that she's noticing, and with the fact that it's making that ache even stronger, but she sits with it and waits as Jemma slowly drifts into sleep. 

Daisy's up for a while after that. She's tracking a Watchdog cell in Los Angeles, and she trusts Jemma, but she doesn't trust the fact that the hack she's using to keep an eye on things is _slightly_ illegal, when Jemma still works for SHIELD. It's another hour before she finishes her work, a few minutes after that before she's tired enough that she thinks she might sleep. 

She slides under the covers, trying to keep from rustling them too much. The bed is already warm from Jemma's body heat, and she can hear the gentle sigh of Jemma's breathing, can watch the rise and fall of her shoulders. There's something about the intimacy of it - about the fact that Jemma trusts her enough to fall asleep in front of her - that makes Daisy feel a little off-balance. 

She curls herself up as small as she possibly can, trying to keep from touching Jemma, from disturbing her. Sleep comes faster than it usually does, and the last thing she remembers is the sound of Jemma's breathing in her ears. 

 

+

 

Daisy wakes up to sunlight streaming in between the curtains, feeling better rested than she has in months. She doesn't know what time it is, but she knows she hasn't slept this late in a long while. There's something warm across her waist, something solid against her shoulder, and she's been sleeping so deeply that it takes time for her to register that the _something_ is Jemma's body. She's fast asleep and sort of wrapped around Daisy, legs tangled around Daisy's thigh, head on her shoulder, arm across her waist. 

Emotion blooms in Daisy's chest, and before she can totally think about how to keep it in check she's leaning down to press her mouth to the top of Jemma's head. She breathes in deep, brushes her lips against Jemma's hair. It feels like muscle memory, like instinct, despite the fact that they haven't done this - slept together, any of this - before. 

She looks for her phone on the nightstand. She can see that there are messages waiting for her, but with Jemma pinning her to the bed, it's just out of reach. "Jemma," she whispers. 

Jemma stirs, but only to wrap her arms more tightly around Daisy's waist. Daisy uses her free hand to stroke at her hair, trying to wake her gently. "Jemma, it's morning. You need to wake up." 

Jemma stirs again, nuzzling into Daisy's chest. Her face is perilously close to the top of Daisy's breasts and Daisy does her best not to think about what that does to her. She hums, mumbles Daisy's name into her t-shirt, as if half-asleep. 

Daisy can pinpoint the moment when Jemma wakes up properly, registers the position of her body in space and the parts of Daisy that she's touching. Her head flies up, and her cheeks are flushed bright red. "Daisy," she says, clear-voiced, eyes open. She's still rumpled from sleep, hair tangled and slightly flattened on one side, blinking herself awake. 

It takes her a few moments more to realize that she's got Daisy in a snuggle-hold and recreate some kind of personal space. The air in the room feels cold against Daisy's body, now that Jemma's warmth is gone, and that's one more thing she doesn't really want to think about right now.

"I'm so sorry, I don't usually -" Jemma begins, sitting up. She runs a hand through her hair, trying to fluff it into something a little less bedheaded. "That is, I must have been -"

"It's fine," Daisy says. She means it, but there's something about having to say it - about having to reassure Jemma that it's alright to touch her - makes the words catch in her throat. 

She reaches for her phone. She's got three missed calls, all from the garage - she was supposed to be there for ten, and it's currently half past eleven. "You could, um. If you want a shower, there's stuff in the bathroom." 

"Yes, if it's not too much trouble," Jemma says. She's watching Daisy with her phone carefully, with a spy's attention to detail. Daisy's not sure when Jemma became the kind of person who did that. 

"Of course," Daisy says. 

Jemma showers. Daisy calls the garage back, calms down Charlie and picks a time near the end of his day. Jemma's not wrong - she doesn't eat much, these days - but Jemma will probably want breakfast, and it probably wouldn't be the worst thing for Daisy to eat something, too. 

 

+

 

By the time Jemma and Daisy are both showered and dressed, it's past noon. They go for breakfast - lunch, technically - at a cafe near to Charlie's garage. All Daisy really wants are pancakes and black coffee, but Jemma gives her such a lecture about proper nutrition that she ends up ordering yogurt with fresh fruit. 

It's not bad. 

They eat breakfast, managing small talk about the weather, the decor of the cafe. They stretch that conversation halfway through Daisy's first cup of coffee, before they hit a wall. Daisy's out of practice at small talk, and Jemma clearly has a lot to say but none of it is safe or easy. Daisy takes a breath. "So," she says. "How'd you find me?"

Jemma raises her eyebrows, smiling the way she always does when she's about to be really proud of her own cleverness. "Well, I happen to have a friend who used to be in an illegal hacking collective." 

"You and all the rest of your friends, I'm pretty sure." Daisy knows Coulson and Mack are looking, and she's pretty sure Lance Hunter tried to reach out to her "anonymously" a few weeks back. None of them have managed to sneak past Daisy's encryption, let alone do it without being detected and actually find her. 

Jemma's smile grows wider. "Turns out I was paying attention to all that talk about digital security after all." 

Daisy can't help but smile in return. "Didn't think I was worth that much trouble," she says. She means it as a joke, doesn't think about it in context but the minute she says it, Jemma's happy expression crumbles. 

Jemma frowns, and reaches across the table. Daisy doesn't really have a free hand, so Jemma cups the hand Daisy's using to cradle her coffee cup. Daisy's fingers are trapped between the warmth of the mug and the warmth of Jemma's hand, little prickles of heat moving through her fingers, making her just-too-aware of Jemma's touch. "You are," Jemma says. She looks right at Daisy as she speaks, with an honesty to her eyes that makes Daisy want to look away. "Believe it or not."

Daisy's not sure if she believes it. But for a moment, with Jemma watching her like that, she wants to. 

 

+

 

Daisy goes to meet Charlie just before five. Jemma comes with her. She's been with Daisy all day, following like a shadow. She doesn't have to say it for Daisy to know that she's following to make sure Daisy stays where she says she'll be. 

The van needed a couple hundred dollars worth of repairs, but he tries to charge her five hundred off the bat. She haggles the price down to a reasonable dollar figure while Jemma watches from the sidewalk, trying and failing to pretend to check her phone. She pays in cash that Jemma notices, but doesn't ask about. 

It's not the best van in the world, but it's a start. Jemma slides into the passenger seat beside her, looking at Daisy like she's waiting to hear the plan. Like they're in this together. Daisy's heart aches at the thought of that, and she doesn't know if she wants it or doesn't. She focuses on turning the key in the ignition, checking the mirrors. "I was going to pick up my stuff at the motel and keep moving. I'm planning to head to L.A., but I can drop you off somewhere, if you want." 

Jemma shrugs. "L.A. sounds fine."

She says it like they've been planning on taking a road trip for months. Like joining Daisy is the easiest thing in the world, and like Daisy's someone worth joining. 

Daisy sighs. They're stopped at a red light, waiting go left. The van is quiet except for the sound of her turn signal, clicking rhythmically. "Are you just like, coming with me, or - ?"

"I don't know," Jemma says. She makes a show of looking into the back of the van, noting the mattress, the space Daisy's set aside for storage. "Do you think this van will fit two?"

This isn't how it's supposed to go. Daisy's supposed to be on her own. But here Jemma is, smiling across at her, like not being alone is the easiest thing in the world. The light ahead of her turns green. She makes the turn, then drops her right hand from the wheel, letting it rest on her knee. Jemma reaches out and takes it, threading her fingers loosely between Daisy's own. 

The road ahead is clear, and Daisy takes a moment to glance at Jemma, the shape of her face, the way she's watching Daisy with hope in her eyes. She tightens her fingers around Jemma's, grips her hand tight, and is rewarded by an answering squeeze in return. 

Daisy takes a breath, says, "Let's find out."


End file.
